Summarizes announcement by Illinois Pollution Control Board of its proposed amendments to the groundwater quality standards.
Summarizes a recent ruling by an Illinois appellate court upholding the Illinois Pollution Control Board's rules governing coal ash ponds (35 Ill. Adm. Code 845).
At both the federal and Illinois state level, the second quarter of 2023 saw environmental laws and regulations proposed and changed.
Discusses published agenda proposing changes to Illinois EPA AERs, including elimination of Illinois’ Emissions Reduction Market System
Summarizes the Illinois Pollution Control Board’s new Time-Limited Water Quality Standard for chloride
This post updates the October 15, 2019, blog post regarding the citizen enforcement proceeding against Midwest Generation, LLC (“MWG”) launched by several environmental advocacy groups (“Environmental Groups”). (That post can be read here.)
On February 6, 2020, the Illinois Pollution Control Board (“Board”) issued an order in Sierra Club, et al. v. Midwest Generation, LLC (PCB13-15) (“Reconsideration Order”) reconsidering its June 20, 2019, interim opinion and order (“Interim Order”). As addressed in greater detail in the earlier post, MWG owns four ...
On September 9, 2019, Midwest Generation, LLC (“MWG”) asked the Illinois Pollution Control Board (“Board”) to reconsider its interim order of June 20, 2019, in the enforcement case of Sierra Club v. Midwest Generation, LLC (docketed as PCB 13-15). That decision may have far-reaching implications for any party that has entered into an environmental compliance or remediation agreement with regulators incorporating Groundwater Management Zones (“GMZs”). According to MWG, the Board misconstrued the Illinois Environmental Protection Act and operative ...
On June 20, 2019, the Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed an appellate court’s ruling on an Illinois Pollution Control Board (“Board”) decision involving groundwater monitoring at clean construction or demolition debris fill sites, in The County of Will v. The Pollution Control Board, 2019 IL 122798, Case Nos. 122798, 122813. The case concerned the Board’s adoption of regulations governing the use of clean construction or demolition debris (“CCDD”) and uncontaminated soil (“US”) as fill material at CCDD fill operations.
CCDD is uncontaminated broken concrete ...
The Hazardous Waste Generator Improvements Rule (GIR), which was finalized by USEPA in 2016, is a significant reorganization of the regulations applicable to hazardous waste generators. 81 Fed. Reg. 85732 (Nov. 28, 2016). With the GIR, USEPA moved all of the RCRA generator provisions into one section – 40 C.F.R. Part 262. The GIR also included several substantive changes to the hazardous waste generator rules which were more stringent than current RCRA generator regulations and, therefore, must be adopted by states with authorized RCRA programs.
The “more stringent than” ...